Being in personal credit card debt is a lot of trouble, and business debt can be even worse. As a business owner, you are responsible for making sure that everything runs smoothly, but you are significantly decreasing that possibility when you rack up credit card debt. When your credit score is down, what can you do to start repairing it?
Stop Charging!
Sometimes, a business will continue to charge items because the entity thinks it will be able to pay off the sum later on. If you need to charge supplies or other items for business purposes, make sure you pay the amount in full immediately. The more you put yourself into debt, the harder it is to get out of it. Put those credit cards away right now. If you decide to combine your balances onto one card, be sure to cut up all of the old ones so that you are not even tempted.
Consolidating Your Balance
Now is the time to find a way to put your balances together. Having one monthly payment is a lot easier to remember than multiple ones. When you do not pay your bill on time, your credit sore suffers even more. You can look to transferring all of the sums to a no or low interest credit card, so you are not wasting as much money on that component. Additionally, without multiple interest rates, you’ll likely be saving on the total amount that you have to pay back.
Avoiding Scams
Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp. reminds individual that it’s important to avoid any scam-like offers to help repair your credit score. These agencies might promise that your credit will be repaid in no time; however, they are actually making the situation worse. They could engage in practices that hurt your credit even more, and they might even ask for money from you. When you are in trouble with credit scores, the last thing you need to do is pay more money.
Someone in Charge
Even a credit score of around 600 could be detrimental for a business. Since you have a strong reputation to maintain, you want that score as close to perfect as possible. Therefore, it’s wise to have someone who is in charge of constantly maintaining, updating and checking credit reports, balances and scores. Of course, you should not be frequently pulling your credit report because this could worsen your score. Essentially, you just want to work on solving the problem before it becomes an even bigger one or before it even starts at all.
Snowball Your Payments
In a business, it can be difficult to have only one credit card, so transferring all of the balances might not work for you. Instead, snowball your payments. Choose the card that has the highest interest rate, and you should start paying extra money on that each month. Pay the minimum on the rest of the cards until the one with the highest rate is entirely paid off. After you pay off that card, you can move on to the other ones. Keep doing this until you are finally out of credit card debt and have regained a positive score.
Having a bad credit score can be really scary for businesses. They might not be able to acquire the necessary goods to make the business continue running. Before you even get into any credit card debt at all, consider the detrimental long-term effects it could have on your business.
About the author: Aaron writes on everything from business law to credit repair agencies like kelcreditrepair.com. He recommends visiting the site if you ever find yourself or your business in a loan or debt-related crisis.